Modern Britain

Gallery: Churches of East London

by Peter Kessler, 7 March 2010. Updated 22 April 2012

The Parish Church of St Gabriel, Aldersbrook
lies on Aldersbrook Road, a short way south of St Mary's and
The Basin lake. The first church on the site was an iron building
erected in 1903 to serve a new housing estate on the lower forest
area of Wanstead. It was dedicated on 16 October 1903 by the bishop of Barking.
The present building, designed by Charles Spooner in the Perpendicular
style, was dedicated in 1914, and the church gained its own parish
in the same year.

Aldersbrook Baptist Church is
further down Aldersbrook Road on the corner of Dover Road. It grew
out of a small mission which existed in 1898. A hall was built in
Dover Road in 1902 and in 1906-1909 the church was built, adjoining
the hall, but membership never rose above a hundred. The church was
bombed during the war and later renovated. In 2009 the church was
closed and the hall used for services while plans were made to
redevelop the site with a new church.

Wanstead Friends Meeting House (Quakers) is
on Bush Road, very close to Leytonstone. Quakers were meeting in Wanstead
at least as early as 1671, and by 1673 they had bought a building in
George Lane for their meetings. The current meeting originated in 1868 as
more and more people moved out of Central London. In 1870 the Becontree
Assembly Rooms at Bushwood were purchased and were rebuilt in 1968 as
the present polygonal white brick structure.

Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is on
the northern side of Cambridge Park Road, which is now divided from
the main part of Wanstead to the south by the North Circular major
thoroughfare. In the 1840s, Wanstead was a village, but as the
adjacent districts of Walthamstow and Leytonstone developed, so the
population increased, and with that, the Catholic community. The
opening of a mission in Walthamstow in 1849 had particular
significance for Wanstead.

In 1910, Our Lady & St George, Walthamstow,
opened a small mission in Hall Road, (now part of Gardner Close and
demolished in 1966). In 1918 the mission was transferred to the hall
of the newly-opened St Joseph's Convent School, Cambridge Park.
In July 1927, the foundation stone for the present church was laid
on the corner of Dangan Road. The centre aisle was soon completed and
the church opened on 13 October 1928. Construction was completed in
1940.

Cambridge Park Methodist Church lies further
east on Cambridge Park Road, opposite George Green and close to Wanstead
Underground. Founded as Cambridge Park United Church about 1865,
it, and the old hall behind it, were built in 1875. The Cambridge Park
hall was added in 1900, but most of it burnt down in 1962, and Warren
Hall was built in 1964. In 2009, part of the church's ceiling collapsed
and the aging building was sold in 2010 to become a nursery.